Last night at the bar, it came to my attention that one of the two readers of this blog doesn't believe that I am now upbeat and positive about life. Despite my pleas for understanding of my new sunny disposition, she would not listen. I believe she may have even screeched "That is such bullshit!" at me. Clearly not everyone has made the choice to be a nicer person.

I understand that niceness is not an easy path to choose. A lesser person might elect to hide their own insecurities behind snarky remarks and elaborately messy hair. That's what Regular Andrew would've done. He was weak. He would've told the person that doubted his sincerity to fuck off, most likely prefaced with a heartfelt "why don't you just" and finished with a convincing "then" because Regular Andrew was that much of a jerk. He might've even made a comment about how her shoes made her look like Frankenwhore.

However, the new Enlightened Andrew calmly tried to explain to this overly judgemental person that if she would just stop being such an awful human being that people might actually like her. Probably not, but there was a chance. She was NOT going to be having any of that and stomped out of the bar screeching terrible things at me like "Have fun tonight!" and "It was good seeing you!" Pathetic. I don't know how her surprisingly cool boyfriend puts up with that name calling bitch.

There are also other good things that result from a more positive approach to life besides being so much better than everyone else.

I think have super-powers now!

Recently at the frame shop, I was attaching some artwork to a mat for a customer and when I picked up the mat to make sure that everything was on straight, the artwork fell off. I thought I had ACTUALLY used some tape and evidently this was NOT the case. Not wanting the customer to doubt my skills a veteran picture framer, I explained to her that the artwork should have stayed in place because I had been using my super willpower to keep them together. The customer and Manager Mark, who was lurking nearby, seemed dubious and this conversation followed...

Enlightened Andrew: Well, it would've worked but I've been using my willpowers on all the other pieces that I already completed before this one. It's so late in the day that most of my willpower reserves are drained.

(in my head this statement continued with "It takes a lot out of me to do everyone else's goddamn job all day long around this dump, for fuck's sake. I can't do every fucking thing ever and not ever make a fucking mistake. Fuck." but a customer was standing right there AND this is the new Enlightened Andrew so in my head it stayed)

This is some life you've got.

When you're growing up, hardly anyone dreams of being a mediocre illustrator, but that's what I turned out to be. Also as it turns out, there's only so many times you can do an illustration featuring a person sitting at a computer with, literally, a question mark floating above their head and a puzzled look on their racially non-specific face before you want to kill yourself.

So I started creating more personal work in the hope of making something great before I die. Some days are certainly better than others, that's for sure.